Nonvolatile semiconductor disk device limiting a number of simultaneous transfers and associated control process
AssigneeOki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
InventorATSUSHI BEPPU
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Write data, when given from a host via an interface, are temporarily stored in a buffer memory of a disk control unit. A number-of-chips managing unit manages the number of memory chips executing writing operations. If the number of memory chips in the process of writing operations does not reach a fixed number, the write data are transferred to the memory chips allocated to, corresponding write areas. Whereas if the number of memory chips in the process of writing operations reaches the fixed number, the write data are transferred after an end of the writing operations to the memory chips in the process of writing operations. An entire electric current during the writing operation of a disk card can be thereby restricted.
Claims4
A nonvolatile semiconductor disk device comprising:
- interface means for transferring data to an outside device;
- a plurality of memory chips each including a nonvolatile semiconductor memory for storing data transferred from or to said interface means, and a buffer memory for temporarily holding the data to write the data to said nonvolatile semiconductor memory;
- and
- control means for outputting the data transferred from said outside device via said interface means to said memory chip, reading the data from said memory chip and outputting the data to said interface means,
- wherein said control means monitors the number of writing processes that are simultaneously being executed in said plurality of memory chips, and controls the outputs of the data to said memory chips so that the number of simultaneous writing processes does not exceed a predetermined value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.